Grimm's Household Tales

One day an old man and his wife were sitting in front of a miserable house, resting for a while from their work. Suddenly a splendid carriage with four black horses came driving up, and a richly dressed man stepped down from it. The peasant stood up, went to the great man, and asked what he wanted and how he could be of use to him. The stranger stretched out his hand to the old man and said, “I want nothing but to enjoy a country dish for once. Cook me some potatoes the way you always have them, and then I will sit down at your table and eat them with pleasure.” The peasant smiled and said, “You are a count or a prince, or perhaps even a duke. Noble gentlemen often have such fancies, but you will have your wish.” The wife went into the kitchen and began to wash and rub the potatoes and to shape them into balls, the way country people eat them. While she was busy with this work, the peasant said to the stranger, “Come into my garden with me for a while. I still have something to do there.” He had dug some holes in the garden and now wanted to plant some trees in them. “Don’t you have any children,” asked the stranger, “who could help you with your work?” “No,” answered the peasant. “I had a son, it is true, but it has been a long time since he went out into the world. He was a good-for-nothing, clever and shrewd, but he would learn nothing and was full of bad tricks. At last he ran away from me, and since then I have heard nothing of him.”

The old man took a young tree, put it in a hole, drove in a post beside it, and when he had shoveled in some earth and trampled it firmly down, he tied the stem of the tree fast to the post with a rope of straw, above, below, and in the middle. “But tell me,” said the stranger, “why you don’t tie that crooked, knotted tree lying in the corner there, bent down almost to the ground, to a post as well, so that it may grow straight like these?” The old man smiled and said, “Sir, you speak according to your knowledge; it is easy to see that you are not familiar with gardening. That tree there is old and misshapen, and no one can make it straight now. Trees must be trained while they are young.” “That is how it was with your son,” said the stranger. “If you had trained him while he was still young, he would not have run away. Now he too must have grown hard and misshapen.” “Truly, it has been a long time since he went away,” replied the old man. “He must have changed.” “Would you know him again if he were to come to you?” asked the stranger. “Hardly by his face,” replied the peasant, “but he has a mark on him, a birthmark on his shoulder that looks like a bean.” When he had said that, the stranger pulled off his coat, bared his shoulder, and showed the peasant the bean. “Good God!” cried the old man. “You really are my son!” Love for his child stirred in his heart. “But,” he added, “how can you be my son? You have become a great lord and live in wealth and luxury. How did you manage to do that?” “Ah, father,” answered the son, “the young tree was tied to no post and has grown crooked. Now it is too old; it will never be straight again. How did I get all that? I have become a thief, but do not be alarmed; I am a master thief. For me there are neither locks nor bolts; whatever I desire is mine. Do not imagine that I steal like a common thief. I take only some of the superfluity of the rich. Poor people are safe; I would rather give to them than take anything from them. Anything I can get without trouble, cunning, and dexterity, I never touch.” “Oh, my son,” said the father, “it still does not please me. A thief is still a thief. I tell you, it will end badly.” The old man took him to his mother, and when she heard that it was her son, she wept for joy, but when he told her that he had become a master thief, two streams flowed down her face. At last she said, “Even if he has become a thief, he is still my son, and my eyes have seen him once more.” They sat down at the table, and once again he ate with his parents the wretched food that he had not eaten for so long. The father said, “If our lord, the count up there in the castle, learns who you are and what trade you follow, he will not take you in his arms and cradle you in them as he did when he held you at the baptismal font, but will make you swing from a noose.” “Don’t worry, father; he will do me no harm, for I understand my trade. I will go to him myself this very day.” When evening drew near, the master thief seated himself in his carriage and drove to the castle. The count received him politely, for he took him for a distinguished man. When, however, the stranger made himself known, the count turned pale and was quite silent for some time. At last he said, “You are my godson, and for that reason mercy will take the place of justice, and I will deal leniently with you. Since you pride yourself on being a master thief, I will put your skill to the test, but if you fail the test, you must marry the rope maker’s daughter, and the croaking of the raven must be your music on that occasion.” “Lord Count,” answered the master thief, “think of three things, as difficult as you like, and if I do not perform your tasks, do with me what you will.” The count thought for some minutes and then said, “Well, then, in the first place, you shall steal out of the stable the horse that I keep for my own riding. In the next place, you shall steal the sheet from beneath the bodies of my wife and myself when we are asleep, without our noticing it, and my wife’s wedding ring as well. Thirdly and lastly, you shall steal the parson and the parish clerk away out of the church. Take note of what I am saying, for your life depends on it.”

The master thief went to the nearest town. There he bought the clothes of an old peasant woman and put them on. Then he stained his face brown and painted wrinkles on it as well, so that no one could have recognized him. Then he filled a small cask with old wine from Hungary, into which he had mixed a powerful sleeping potion. He put the cask in a basket, which he carried on his back, and walked with slow, tottering steps to the count’s castle. It was already dark when he arrived. He sat down on a stone in the courtyard and began to cough like an asthmatic old woman and to rub his hands as if he were cold. In front of the stable door some soldiers were lying around a fire. One of them noticed the woman and called out to her, “Come nearer, old mother, and warm yourself beside us. After all, you have no bed for the night and must take one where you can find it.” The old woman tottered up to them, begged them to lift the basket from her back, and sat down beside them at the fire. “What have you got in your little cask, old lady?” asked one. “A good mouthful of wine,” she answered. “I live by trade. For money and kind words I am quite ready to let you have a glass.” “Let us have it here, then,” said the soldier. When he had tasted one glass, he said, “When wine is good, I like another glass,” and had another poured out for himself, and the rest followed his example. “Hello, comrades,” cried one of them to those who were in the stable. “Here is an old woman who has wine as old as she is. Take a drink; it will warm your stomachs far better than our fire.” The old woman carried her cask into the stable. One of the soldiers had seated himself on the saddled riding horse, another held its bridle in his hand, and a third had taken hold of its tail. She poured out as much as they wanted until the spring ran dry. It was not long before the bridle fell from the hand of the first one, and he fell down and began to snore. The second let go of the tail, lay down, and snored still louder. The one who was sitting in the saddle stayed seated but bent his head almost down to the horse’s neck, and he slept and blew through his mouth like the bellows of a forge. The soldiers outside had already been asleep for a long time and were lying on the ground motionless, as if dead. When the master thief saw that he had succeeded, he put a rope in the first soldier’s hand instead of the bridle and a wisp of straw in the hand of the other, who had been holding the tail. But what was he to do with the one who was sitting on the horse’s back? He did not want to throw him down, for the man might wake up and cry out. He had a good idea. He unbuckled the girths of the saddle, tied a couple of ropes that were hanging from a ring on the wall firmly to the saddle, and hoisted the sleeping rider up into the air on it. Then he twisted the rope around the posts and fastened it. He soon unchained the horse, but if he had ridden over the stony pavement of the yard, they would have heard the noise in the castle. So he wrapped the horse’s hooves in old rags, led him out carefully, leaped onto him, and galloped off.

When day broke, the master thief galloped to the castle on the stolen horse. The count had just gotten up and was looking out of the window. “Good morning, Sir Count,” the thief cried to him. “Here is the horse that I have safely brought out of the stable! Just look how beautifully your soldiers are lying there asleep, and if you will go into the stable, you will see how comfortable your guards have made themselves.” The count could not help laughing. Then he said, “For once you have succeeded, but things won’t go so well the second time, and I warn you that if you come before me as a thief, I will deal with you as I would with a thief.” When the countess went to bed that night, she closed her hand tightly around the wedding ring, and the count said, “All the doors are locked and bolted. I will stay awake and wait for the thief, but if he gets in through the window, I will shoot him.” The master thief, however, went in the dark to the gallows, cut down a poor sinner who was hanging there from the noose, and carried him on his back to the castle. Then he set a ladder up to the bedroom, put the dead body on his shoulders, and began to climb. When he had climbed so high that the head of the dead man showed at the window, the count, who was watching from his bed, fired a pistol at him. Immediately the master thief let the poor sinner fall and hid in a corner. The night was lit well enough by the moon for the thief to see clearly how the count climbed out of the window onto the ladder, came down, carried the dead body into the garden, and began to dig a hole in which to lay it. “Now,” thought the thief, “the favorable moment has come.” He stole nimbly out of his corner and climbed up the ladder straight into the countess’s bedroom. “Dear wife,” he began in the count’s voice, “the thief is dead, but after all, he is my godson, and he has been more of a rascal than a villain. I will not put him to public shame; besides, I am sorry for his parents. I will bury him myself before daybreak, in the garden, so that the matter may not become known. So give me the sheet. I will wrap the body in it and bury him the way a dog buries things, by scratching.” The countess gave him the sheet. “I tell you what,” continued the thief, “I am feeling magnanimous. Give me the ring too—the unhappy man risked his life for it, so he may take it with him into his grave.” She would not contradict the count, and although she did it unwillingly, she drew the ring from her finger and gave it to him. The thief made off with both things and reached home safely before the count in the garden had finished burying the body.

What a long face the count made when the master thief came the next morning and brought him the sheet and the ring. “Are you a wizard?” he said. “Who has fetched you out of the grave in which I myself laid you and brought you to life again?” “You did not bury me,” said the thief, “but the poor sinner from the gallows.” And he told him exactly how everything had happened, and the count was forced to admit that the thief was clever and crafty. “But you have not reached the end yet,” the count added. “You still have to perform the third task, and if you do not succeed in that, all is of no use.” The master thief smiled and gave no answer. When night had fallen, he went to the village church with a long sack on his back, a bundle under his arm, and a lantern in his hand. In the sack he had some crabs, and in the bundle he had short wax candles. He sat down in the churchyard, took out a crab, and stuck a wax candle on its back. Then he lit the little light, put the crab on the ground, and let it creep about. He took a second one out of the sack and treated it the same way, and so on until the last one was out of the sack. After that he put on a long black garment that looked like a monk’s cowl and stuck a gray beard on his chin. When at last he was quite unrecognizable, he took the sack in which the crabs had been, went into the church, and climbed up into the pulpit. The clock in the tower was just striking twelve. When the last stroke had sounded, he cried in a loud and piercing voice, “Listen, sinful men! The end of all things has come! The last day is at hand! Listen! Listen! Whoever wishes to go to heaven with me must creep into the sack. I am Peter, who opens and shuts the gate of heaven. Look how the dead outside there in the churchyard are wandering about, collecting their bones. Come, come, and creep into the sack! The world is about to be destroyed!” The cry echoed through the whole village. The parson and the clerk, who lived nearest to the church, heard it first, and when they saw the lights moving about in the churchyard, they noticed that something unusual was going on and went into the church. They listened to the sermon for a while, and then the clerk nudged the parson and said, “It would not be a bad idea if we were to use the opportunity together and, before the last day dawns, find an easy way of getting to heaven.” “To tell the truth,” answered the parson, “that is what I myself have been thinking, so if you are willing, we will set out.” “Yes,” answered the clerk, “but you, the pastor, have precedence; I will follow.” So the parson went first and climbed up to the pulpit, where the master thief opened his sack. The parson crept in first, and then the clerk. The master thief immediately tied up the sack tightly, seized it by the middle, and dragged it down the pulpit steps, and whenever the heads of the two fools bumped against the steps, he cried, “We are going over the mountains.” Then he pulled them through the village the same way, and when they were passing through puddles, he cried, “Now we are going through wet clouds.” And when at last he was dragging them up the steps of the castle, he cried, “Now we are on the steps of heaven, and we will soon be in the outer court.” When he had reached the top, he pushed the sack into the pigeon house, and when the pigeons fluttered about, he said, “Listen to how glad the angels are and how they are flapping their wings!” Then he bolted the door on them and went away.

The next morning he went to the count and told him that he had performed the third task also and had carried the parson and the clerk out of the church. “Where have you left them?” asked the count. “They are lying upstairs in a sack in the pigeon house and imagine that they are in heaven.” The count went up himself and convinced himself that the master thief had told the truth. When he had freed the parson and the clerk from their captivity, he said, “You are an arch-thief and have won your wager. For once you escape with a whole skin, but see that you leave my land, for if you ever set foot on it again, you may count on your elevation to the gallows.” The arch-thief took leave of his parents and went out once more into the wide world, and no one has ever heard of him since.